Are You Storing Up Rewards in Heaven?

Dr. Tony Evans delivers a profound message on living with a future orientation and pursuing heavenly rewards. Join him as he challenges viewers to aim for a deeper commitment to Christ and the ultimate reward awaiting those who follow Him faithfully.

What god is wanting you and me and us to do is to live in light of the future, not only in light of the now.
When you go to college, they ask you, what is your major?
That’s gonna affect the length time you invest, it’s going to affect things once you make that long term decision.
Once you decide you want maximum reward and glory, is gonna affect choices in time.
Matthew 6, verse 19 to 21, it tells us to store up treasures in heaven.
In other words, live for your reward.
You can know the difference between the maturity or immaturity of a child and the maturity of a parent.
Because children only live for the now. All they’re concerned about is now.
And if you have children that think money grows on trees, they don’t talk to you about saving, they don’t talk to you about investing, they don’t talk to you about 401s or 403bs, and they don’t they don’t get into all of that because they want what they want now.
But as you mature, as you grow an understanding of life, you understand that a good portion of life must be future oriented.
That’s why you encourage them to go to school.
You you’re encouraging them to be future oriented, whether or not they like studying now.
You have a retirement fund or savings account because There is some part of your life that you understand must be future oriented.
He says I want to motivate you to live your life with a future orientation for the reward.
And here is the phrase of inheritance.
It is my hope that every head of household here has a will.
The reason you wanna will is you want to control what you have accumulated and where it goes when you are no longer here.
Because if you don’t decide that, somebody else will decide it for you, or some system will decide it for you.
So you wanna control that. So every responsible head of household has an inheritance or has a will where they have decided what goes where.
That’s that’s inheritance. We talk about what our children or offspring will inherit.
In my will, the first thing that’s in there is what I will leave to Oakland Bible Fellowship.
Because the lord’s word comes first. Then what I lead to other ministries will be in there second.
And then what I leave to my children, come next.
And then after that, what I leave to others because there is a inheritance where you are future oriented when you are not here.
Paul calls god, having an inheritance, he calls it the reward of inheritance.
And he wants to incentivize you and me to get all that is in his will for you.
Every believer is in god’s will.
And he wants to incentivize us to get the maximum reward that he has willed for every believer.
He wants to incentivize that. Oh, airlines wanna incentivize travel. So what do they have?
They have different levels of recognition for your relationship.
If you travel like me, American Airlines, you you can just travel, or you can be Advantage or you can be Advantage Gold, or you can be Advantage Platinum, or you can be Advantage Executive Platinum, or you can become concierge And the different levels of what you get is determined by how close the relationship was with the airlines.
How much did you fly then?
And the amount of mileage that you used to fly affects the level of reward that they offer you.
So each level gives you a different level of reward.
And so those who fly in a lot get more reward, more perks, more more upgrades, more this, more that because you were closer to the airline.
You didn’t fly Delta when you could have flown American.
Because they are valuing the relationship.
Athletes are given incentive clauses in their contract to incentivize them usually tied to more money If you make this many tackles, catch this many passes, throw this many touchdowns.
They will incentivize the basic so that you can get a greater reward.
So god wants us to love him. Yes.
Because of the price paid, but he also wants us to pursue reward. Salvation is free. Rewards must be earned.
Salvation is a gift, but reward comes from work.
And so he speaks to Christians about pursuing their inheritance.
Pursuing the reward. Revelation 22 verse 12.
Jesus says, I’m coming back and I am bringing my reward with me to reward every man according to what he has done Klesiastes chapter 12 verse 13 says the conclusion when all has been heard is fear god keep his commandments because this applies to every person for god will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or bad.
Good or evil.
So what god is wanting you and me and us to do is to live in light of the future, not only in light of the now, but to live now in light of the future when you go to college, they ask you, what is your major?
What do you want your major to be? They’re asking you a question about your future.
Because once you say I wanna be, let’s say, a doctor, you can’t then say, but I’m only gonna go to school for 4 years.
You see, those 2 don’t match because you don’t have to go to medical school.
So the once you say what you want, the reward to be, the career to be, the income to be, then that’s gonna affect which courses you take.
That’s gonna affect the length of time you invest.
It’s going to affect things once you make that long term decision.
Once you decide you want maximum reward and glory, it’s gonna affect choices in time.
But if you don’t have a great love and a high incentive for reward, then you’ll be satisfied to be a casual Christian.
To be a, uh, a nerdy well Christian, you’re gonna just be satisfied to get to heaven, but not get the benefits of heaven.
So what are some of these rewards?
What is god going to give you?
By way of reward, if in fact, You decide you want to be not casual, not even committed, but you wanna be you wanna be a radical saint.
Appropriately radical. Well, one of the things he’s gonna give you is public recognition.
You’re gonna be a celebrity.
Those Christians who rise to the high level of commitment.
Who gave god that all, not perfectly because none of us is perfect.
But consistently wanted to serve Christ, love Christ, follow Christ, And even when they fell short, they bounced back to get in sync back with Christ.
These will be the celebrities of heaven.
These will be the ones you recognize.
I remember just the other day, I was at an event and a major, and I’m a mega celebrity walked into the event.
If I gave their names, you would all know this mega celebrity.
And when the mega celebrity walked into the event, all eyes of the people in the event shifted over to that celebrity because he had gained a name.
In heaven, those Christians who have exceeded the norm will have a name.
And all the other Christians will point to, oh, did you see him? Did you see him?
Did you see her? Look look look at that because god is going to give them divine approval.
And celebrity recognition. And John chapter 12 verse 26.
Jesus says these words He says in John 12 verse 26, if anyone serves me, he must follow me.
And where I am there, my servant will be also If anyone serves me, my father will honor him.
So your service to Christ will bring honor from god.
This is not something every believer gets.
This is something some believers get because of their service for Christ.
It will become recognition.
I remember an incident when I was at the National religious broadcasters where people meet or do television or radio.
And we were at this annual event.
There were thousands of people in the room for the speaker because the speaker was the former president, George W Bush, when he was president, he was the speaker that particular day.
And so I was one among thousands in the room for his speech, and he was introduced.
He came to the podium. When he stood at the podium, He greeted everybody.
He says I’m certainly honored that the National Religious broadcasters have invited me to speak.
And then he looked down And he said publicly, Tony Evans, is that you out there? Yes.
So good to see you, my friend. I’m sure glad to see.
And he started talking about me for a few moments, and everybody.
Everybody was zeroed in on me because the president of the United States called my name.
What would it look like in heaven if the king of the universe calls your name?
Jesus said, look at Jane or look at butch or look at Bill or look at Bennett because I know them.
Y’all are here, but I know them.
Now he called my name because I had a relationship with him as governor.
He in Texas. He had been to the church numbers of times.
We’d eaten dinner together, numbers of times. And so that relationship gave us a familiarity.
So in the crowd, he called my name. Don’t you want Jesus to call your name?
The Bible says we’ll see it next week.
He he says he says, well done, my good and faithful servant.
This is public recognition, public honor, becoming one of the celebrities of glory.
He will give honor.